Takashi Miike Appreciation Thread!



Fan's of the extreme and macabre would no doubt know this man's name. You might even recognize his face from Eli Roth's Hostel which was totally disappointing (well not really, but yeah kinda, anyone else expecting something more extreme from Hostel?....Anyone?.... ANYONE????!!!). But I do love the visual reference, having Takashi Miike attached to any project will no doubt spring interest!

The purpose of this thread is simply to glorify some of my favourite movies from this guy. I am no expert on Miike, I mean the man has directed nearly 100 movies and I've seen maybe just over a handful! So please feel free to add any thoughts, reviews etc you have on Miike to this thread. All opinions are most welcomed!
I suppose I should start with my first introduction to Miike, and that's with Audition.



We watch a widowed man hold a fake audition, looking for the right girl who he could fall in love with. Audition often makes the lists when discussing the most disturbing movies. I wouldn't say it's the most disturbing I've seen, but it does get extremely unsettling. Miike has gone on record saying he purposefully made the movie painfully slow so when the ending comes, it hits so deeply. It worked wonders for me, but to be honest, I wasn't bored at all during this movie. I forgot I was watching a horror movie and was just so engrossed with the characters, I mean the main protagonist is the nicest guy! I just wanted him to find someone to love and live happily ever after!
Though this movie has a whole different agenda planned. The age old story of boy meets girl, boys loses girl, boy gets girl has such perverted twist to it. The movie progressively gets darker and darker. The last third have some genuinely chilling moments, including one scene where method actress Eihi Shiina vomits into a bowel and feeds it to a terrible mutilated individual. Yes you read that correctly, look it up!!!
By the time we get to the climax of the film, I do believe the term '˜cringeworthy' can be applied as we watch a man that we all kinda like and feel bad for, have the most dreadful things done to his body. I do love the irony that the femme fatale inflicting such brutal pain, is using the most delicate weapons, that's just a nice touch!



When Audition ended, I immediately jumped straight onto imdb to find out what else the director had made that I would be interested in watching. Truly, I was onto something very special!
I spent the next several years trying to track down Ichi the Killer because Australia sucked majorly and didn't have any in stock until like two years ago. So settled for what I could find and ended up with a copy of his entry to the Masters of Horror series, Imprint!



A man who is searching for his long lost love, finds a friend of hers who knows what happened to her. But naturally, her story is far more devious than it seems.
You know what I loved about the advertising of this? The fact that this one was banned from cable TV due to its extreme content. When I hear stuff like that, I get giddy like a school girl. I was confident I was about to watch something truly excruciating. And I was right!
You guys ever had to stop a movie because it was so crineworthy? I have more than a few times, and this is one of them. Holy Hell! If you though the needles in Audition were bad, this one is upped up a notch! Cringeworthy doesn't even begin to describe it.



Because Imprint is only 63 mins long, it gets straight to the point. No hour build up, nope, we get straight into tragic love story and straight into the horror, though it does still up an interesting build up and a very interesting climax.
On top of the brutal torture, we also have some very eyebrow raising taboos, I might want to add that pro life peeps should stay away from this one, Miike is not for you. 😉
The only thing I probably needed to add is I kinda wished it was in Japanese with Eng subs. The main actress spoke English very well, but most of the cast... I am pretty sure they didn't have a clue what they were saying.... And they STILL acted better than Billy Drago. Poor Drago, your acting sucked on Charmed and it sucked here too! But we still love ya!
Hooking and entertaining, it maybe a little silly, but this one is sure to delight fans of extreme horror fanatics alike.

Okay, still looking for Ichi the Killer.... Still looking, still looking, (fucking Australia) still looking, but then hooray, another Miike film! One Missed Call!



It's at this point that I realised how versatile Miike is, this one isn't extreme, it's your standard Japanese horror movie!
Kids start getting mysterious phones calls from what appears to be themselves just as they die horrific deaths.
I really liked the story of this, very fascinating idea and an interesting little take on the ghost theme. Though I did find it unfortunately pretty average. While I liked the movie, there was nothing too exceptional about it, and to be honest, I don't really remember it too well. But, I did remember liking it for what it was, and it must have made some impact, cos naturally, they remade it.
One thing I have to point out about this movie is it's got Mitsuko from Battle Royale in it! So... it gets like 10 extra points right there!!! [dance]



It also had a very catchy ringtone, which was the ringtone of death!
Unfortunately, I don't remember much more to say about it, so I'll gracefully move on to my favourite Miike film.
Australia no longer sucks, Ichi the Killer is now available!



The build up to an epic showdown between the ultimate sadist and the ultimate masochist. Without a doubt, one of the most entertaining, awesome, sick, depraved and just flat out amazing films ever! And I gotta say, that story is beautiful! I mean, the ultimate sadist and masochist! That's like a love story! Just a very twisited and perverted love story. 😄
And extreme! This one is majorly extreme! Lots of violence, gore, sadism etc. The opening title comes up from a pile of sperm for goodness sake (eww). But it's so outrageously over the top, it also hilarious! You laugh, you'll cringe, you'll go ewwwwwww and you'll have a ball! Ichi the Killer is pure disturbing insanity and I loved every bit of it!
Major shout out goes to the real star of the movie, Kakihara! I mean just look at him! Iconic is the word that springs to mind for me. Truly epic performance and such a memorable character. Bravo! [clap]



I should wrap this up before I really bore you guys, so I will leave you with yet another eye brow raising experience and that is the ever notorious Visitor Q. No use waiting for that one on DVD here, twas a futile exercise so I •ahem• obtained it another way. What? Don't look at me like that, don't you judge me!



So, what's it about? A man hit anothers in the head, and then comes to live at their house and observe their family. Okay! Let's see what we can gain from Visitor Q. Hmmm, well, daughter has sex with her own father? Check. Son abusing his mother? Check. Mother lactating breast milk? Check. Father raping dead chick? Check. Father getting stuck in said dead chick during? Oh good lord what the bloody hell am I watching here?! And why am I laughing?!!! This isn't funny is it?! Well, it kinda is, but so very very VERY sick. I have no bloody idea how Miike comes up with this shit, but good lord this shit is insane!



I never thought it was possible to find a movie more insane then Ichi the Killer, though since this one has a documentary vibe to it, it feels so much dirtier. That and there's incest and weird shit going down. I mean really weird shit! Damn! Whether you love Miike or hate him, you gotta admit, this guy is insane! Heh, I guess that's why I do love him! 😉

I wanted to get into a few more Miike films, but I reckon that's enough for now. Till then, thankyou for reading!

#Extreme #Japanese #Miike

Can we change the poster here?

This must be some new fangled release poster - conforming to all the modern poster problems.

This one is the best, IMO.


#BetterPostersPlease

behold, free weird british television

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/black-mirror/4od

#BlackMirror

True crime stuff.

I've always been fascinated by true crime stuff. TV shows looking for tips on crimes, movies based on real life crimes, documentaries about crimes, even stuff online like Wikipedia's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_unsolved_deaths . I think it's one of the reasons why I decided to go with a giallo for my novel, because it involves mystery and trying to figure out who the killer is.

I'd say some of the top movies based on real life crimes are:

- Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer https://trashepics.com/forum/130/ , based on the life and crimes of Henry Lee Lucas and Ottis Toole.

- Summer of Sam https://trashepics.com/forum/235/ , based on the crimes of the Son of Sam, David Berkowitz.

- Deranged https://trashepics.com/forum/472/ , based on the life and crimes of Ed Gein.

- Zodiac https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443706/ , based of the crimes of the Zodiac Killer.

- The Manson Family https://trashepics.com/forum/139/ , based on the life and crimes of the Manson Family.

I own and highly recommend all five of those movies. Henry even has a surprisingly good sequel https://trashepics.com/forum/132/. I realize I left out other good stuff like Psycho https://trashepics.com/forum/41/ and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre https://trashepics.com/forum/21/ , which are also both supposedly based on Gein, but I don't feel like those are really meant to be about him and just borrow ideas from his life.






Thinking about it, I guess I don't really know that much about true crime documentaries. In fact, only two come to mind at the moment: H.H. Holmes: America's First Serial Killer https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0358500/ and The Poisoner's Handbook https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3154430/ , the latter of which is really part of a TV series itself and isn't entirely about crimes. Something I enjoyed about both of those is the fact that they focus on crimes from a time long since past, when crime solving techniques weren't as efficient as they are now.

As far as TV shows that focus on true crimes, I think there are two main ones that come to mind for most, at least here in the US: Unsolved Mysteries https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094574/ and America's Most Wanted https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0094415/. As a kid, I watched both of them, although I did and still do lean towards Unsolved Mysteries. I think it's just the whole style of the show, from Robert Stack's voice to the darkly toned music.






Unlike fictional horror, which hasn't creeped me out in the slightest for years now, Unsolved Mysteries always manages to creep me out after I watch enough of it. And I don't mean the usually cheesy ghost or UFO segments. I'm talking about the murders, most of which still stand out separately in my mind, even if I can't remember the exact names of the people involved in each one, because most of them are fucked up in their own, unique way.















Much like horror movies, I could talk about the segments on that show for hours. It's not that I enjoy the idea of the suffering that some of those people went through. I do feel bad for the victims and their loved ones. But at the same time, it's just so interesting to me.




As sort of a bonus, Matthew McConaughey and Bill Moseley starred in separate segments, McConaughey in the Edward Bell https://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Edward_Bell segment and Moseley in the Cokeville Elementary School Explosion https://unsolvedmysteries.wikia.com/wiki/Cokeville_Elementary_School_explosion segment. There were probably other known actors who were in segments. I just don't know about them.




Unfortunately, it's very hard to find any Unsolved Mysteries segments to watch on YouTube, due to copyrights. I think it's a shame since it rarely comes on TV anymore and when it does, it's the more recent, updated, less creepy version. This is the only segment I currently know about that's on there and that's because the person who uploaded it has something to do with the case itself:





That's actually a pretty creepy one itself. I'm lucky enough to have 19 bootleg discs myself with about 6 hours worth of segments on each. There's some officially released sets too (one was pictured above) that mostly contain well-known segments, but they really just leave you wanting more.

Well, that's all from me for now. Until next time.

#Deranged #HenryPortraitOfASeri #Murder #SummerOfSam #TrueCrime #UnsolvedMysteries

The Incredibly Strange Film Show (1988)

In 1988 British journo Jonathan Ross hosted this documentary series on Channel 4 in the UK. In it he featured films and film makers outside the mainstream - as an impressionable 11 year old, I was at once intruiged and unsure of these 'underground' masterpieces.



To be perfectly honest, more than a few of them bored me at the time - what with some of the featured films not containing Terminators, Predators, Running Men, or Commandos. Looking back now, though, this series opened my eyes to a a range of film makers I'd never have heard of otherwise. These were the days before the internet, of course.

The first series covered these chaps:
1. John Waters
2. HG Lewis
3. Ray Dennis Steckler
4. Ted V. Mickels
5. Russ Meyer
6. Sam Raimi

The second series (1989's Son of the Incredibly Strange Film Show) was much more my cup of tea - concerning itself with the following:
1. Jackie Chan
2. Fred Olen Ray & Doris Wishman
3. El Santo
4. Ed Wood Jr
5. Tsui Hark & Stuart Gordon
6. George Romero & Tom Savini

The series itself is available on YouTube, and, though now quite dated, it still stands the test of time, and should be of interest to all trash lovers.

Cheers

#Documentary #JonathanRoss

Texas Frightmare Weekend 2014

Today, I attended Texas Frightmare Weekend. As with most conventions, people want to hear stories about celebrities, to see what these celebrities are actually like. I had no bad experiences this or any other year I've attended, which is awesome, but this year, things seemed to go very smoothly.

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I attended the Terminator panel early on. I think Michael Biehn was high because he was zoning out and staring into space a lot.

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@DerTables, Scott Reiniger, and myself.

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Tom Morga, myself, and @Der. Now Tom was very nice, and explained the extent of his portrayal as Jason in Friday the 13th part 5 and Michael Myers in Halloween 4. Apparently, he did several key scenes in H4 before George P. Wilbur came in and took all the credit.

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Me and Larry Drake, of Darkman 1 & 2 and Dark Night of the Scarecrow.

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A mostly naked bimbo.

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David "Flyboy" Emge, myself, and @Der. I asked him about his strange bit part in Basket Case 2 (he plays one of the freaks in heavy makeup), to which he told me that took the job because he wasn't doing anything then and sort of coincidentally fell into it.

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Me and A. Michael Baldwin, from Phantasm! This man was very nice, and we briefly discussed Phantasm 5.

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@ErmaBlimp and the nephew laughing in the face of danger.

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Myself, @Der, Kevin Van Hentenryck of the Basket Case trilogy, and the nephew doing his best Belial impression. Kevin was very nice, as you can see.

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Come on, it's a pool party!! @Der, Courtney Gains of Children of the Corn fame, and myself. I spoke to him about a trash epic called Poolboy that he was in. You can tell he never thought much of that movie when he didn't even know it was on dvd! Still, he was plenty grateful to be there.

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Michael Parks, myself, and @Der. It's almost intimidating to meet a man like Michael Parks, who regularly works with Tarantino and Rodriguez, but he was worth it. After all, he was in Twin Peaks!

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Myself, the nephew, Doug Bradley, and @Der. The man behind the pins was not only surprisingly pleasant for the king of hell, but he wasn't afraid to vent his distaste for the idea of remaking Hellraiser. Seriously, he seemed to scowl at the thought of a remake, but was fine with the idea of a sequel (which I totally sympathize with). He signed an autograph for me with "See you in hell".

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Myself, Nancy Loomis, and @Ermablimp. Nancy Loomis is known primarily for her role as Annie in Halloween '78, as well as bit parts in Halloween 2 and 3, and The Fog. She was very nice and engaging in conversation, and signed an autograph with "Speed kills", which thrilled me.

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I didn't get to meet George Romero, but I attended the Dawn of the Dead panel, which was amusing (more coherent than the Terminator panel ended up being), and it was surreal. I was in the same room with George A. Romero! And @Der got to speak to him!



#Convention

The Killing Games (2012, Barry J. Gillis)



It's been far too long since we basked in the splendour of a new work of art from filmmaker/singer/philanthropist Barry J. Gillis. There was that Wicked World movie he worked on for like 20 years that remains almost entirely unseen. Then there was the music video for the haunting masterpiece Road to Sadness, in which Barry J. Gillis sang, acted and directed. I believe he even made the sandwiches for the catering. I bet they tasted amazing. But now, the Barry J. Gillis fans of the world finally have another full-length feature from the greatest human being ever to walk the planet.

The powers that be tried to prevent us from seeing The Killing Games. You see, it was rejected from a film festival for being too motherfucking violent!!! When Barry J. Gillis spoke out against this outrage, a minor Facebook campaign was started, imploring film festival organisers to blacklist Barry and his film. They all complied... except one. The programmer of the Calvary International Film Festival loved it so much that he simply had to screen it. He's a man of good taste. If I had a sister, I'd happily let him fuck her. Even in the ass, if that's what he wanted.

They tried to shut him down, but they failed, like the failing failures they are. Now finally, The Killing Games is available for all to see.

The Village People once sang that you can't stop the music. They were totally right. Trust me, I've tried. Music is too intangible, it keeps slipping through your fingers. But you know what else you can't stop? Barry J. Gillis. Unstoppable is his middle name. It's true, he spells it with a silent J.

So is it any good? I have no idea coz I ain't seen it yet. If you were expecting this to be a review, then... ermm, sorry I guess. But I have seen the trailer and it's pretty awesome. Here ya go -



FUCK YEAH!!!!

Get your very own Trash Zone, here on this site!

A trash what? Well, a trash "zone" is just an area we designate on the site for random things that don't necessarily need to relate to anything we normally discuss here on the site (but it very well can if you want it to). Any user can have one, and it can serve whatever purpose you want it to, and it will be coded and styled to your needs.

Think of it as your own mini-website, that you don't have to build.
Limited time only.

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If you look to our Trash/Zone page, it's hard to see what the difference is, but that's only because there hasn't been much added to the zone yet, but the Zone index page is our news station. It features articles tagged with "/httr/", which are designated as our news articles. Furthermore, users trying to post these articles must be moderators for it to show up here. You need credentials to post.

However, that's just the index page. Then, we have the "sections" that everybody has been so antsy about. We've simply just titled them as "zones" because it flows better, and the link to your zone would be smaller (i.e. "trashepics.com/zone/ren/"). These sections/zones of the site will be coded and styled by the staff, and to your specifications.

The layout does not need to conform to the main site, and can be as intricate or simple as you desire it to be. You can make your zone private, so only you can view it, or you can make it public, to show everyone (or maybe just your contacts).

People have suggested sections for horror soundtracks, independent film-making, and extreme cinema, among other things. This can be done. You can have a featured media, customized shoutbox, customized posts, and random gadgets and doo-dads to make your site experience even easier. Have a zone banner, custom menus... whatever the hell you want, and you want to know why? Because I am bored right now!

Start designing your Trash Epics section NOW! ... Because I'm not doing it by myself!

Elves (1989)

When there is no more room in hell, the elves shall walk the earth.

Yes, yes, I know how you're feeling. I shuddered too, when I heard that 'oh so famous' line from this 1989 trash epic. Elves. That's what we're dealing with. Our evil and vicious antagonists, are Elves! Not 'Critters', with their awesomely large grins, not 'Trolls' with their unique fx, not even 'Gremlins' and they look like cuddly little munchkins half the time. No, no, we're dealing with something much more sinister and evil. Behold, the Elves, in all their ugly glory!



Whoops, wrong elves. Hang on a minute.



Ah, there we go. Attractive isn't he. It looks like Nosferatu had sex with a rat. And look at his mouth. He never closes it. Every time you see this little bugger, he's got his mouth open, I kept expecting him to start drooling. And of course the icing on the cake being the Santa hat. This is after all, a Christmas horror movie, if you can call it that.

So what's it all about then?
Well, it centers around a teen called Kirsten. She's not a fan of Christmas. She hates it so much, she and her girlfriends decide to do some anti Christmas ritual at the beginning of the film. In doing so, Kirsten hurts her hand and starts bleeding all over the place. This is important, apparently her blood has the ability to awaken the Elf. Not 'Elves' by the way, there is no plural here. There is only one Elf, the title of this movie is a lie. But I'd still much rather watch Elves, then this flick.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0319343/reference

Anyway, our second major protagonist, is good old Santa himself, played by Grizzly Adams.



Let's just take a moment to bask in the glory of his beard. Cos seriously, dat beard! Damn, he could give MacReady a run for his money.
I don't know what it is about guys who have beards, but they just seem more manly! More guys should wear more beards.

What were were talking about again? Oh yes, Haggerty plays an ex cop, turned Santa, who plays the father figure, the protector of our dear little Kirsten. And with such an epic beard like that, we know this is someone who is tough. Someone who is manly, someone who might be able to face the evil Elves... er, I mean Elf.

Okay, so there is much more to the plot, but I'm gonna zip my lips. The whole fun of Elves, is discovering the drama and shenanigans all on your own-some. What I can tell you, is things get all sorts of crazy. Like sh!t hitting the wall, crazy! I don't wanna use the term Nazi Elf Rapists, so I won't. But I really wanna...

Still haven't convinced you to watch this movie yet? Well, lets see if I can change that. For a movie that's meant to be rated PG13, it had full frontal nudity, harsh language, crotch stabbings, attempted elf rape, and a horny Santa Claus. Who couldn't love a movie that utters this line...



Best line ever!

All that said, this is some low budget shlock. The acting is woeful (apart from Haggerty's), the plot makes no sense (cos it doesn't), and the Elf is ridiculous. It takes him like ten minutes to try and rape a chick, when she's sitting right next to him. She's not even defending herself, she's right there!

This is one of those, 'so bad, it's wonderful' movies. Highly recommended for some high quality entertainment.

8/10

Thankyou. Cheers!

The Plan (For Media)

Don't be discouraged, my friends, because we're just getting started. I still have this site slapped with a toe-tag reading "Beta mode", but you're the ones here to help me fine-tune it, moderate it, and post "official" site articles.

It's a team effort, but a web site is a business opportunity too, through ad revenue. If we could capitalize on that, we can get hood rich and live the dream. Remember, I'm not a malfunctioning robot moderator (like the ones IMDb use). I'm just a poor American idiot who loves weed, B-movies, guitar, titties, and the internet. When I'm not ripping people off at the concession stand by selling them food at 4x its regular price, I'm at home doing my five wives (all at the same time, of course). If I can make shit happen, then anyone can.

Things can only happen if you try, and if you try hard enough, you always succeed. In 2009, I stopped and asked myself, "how does a forum work?". If you don't know how to do something on the internet, look it up on the internet.

I found out how to make a forum in just a few clicks, but don't take that as an invite to build one better than mine, because it's a gradual process that continues to build upon itself, and to me, this website is a canvas for anything. There's so much we can do with a website that has no rules or regulations. But for now... some content ideas...

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Some of you may not have realized this yet, but we do have a whole set of boards for specific films and tv shows. I'm serious! Nobody seems to utilize it much because I think nobody gets the point of it, so I'm going to try and elaborate on what we can do with the films in our site's database.

Movie of the Week - A featured film/series/tv-show that spans for x amount of days, in which our whole site would be themed accordingly. I'm talking site background images, articles and discussions, featured polls, new easter eggs, videos (eventually), and most recently, I've been working on games, which will have appropriately themed images, content, and audio.

For example, me and @Ballz have been discussing a Maximum Overdrive week, in which the background, polls, and games would be Maximum Overdriven. Each level in the Tetris game will have a different AC/DC song and bg still. However, we're saving Maximum Overdrive week until I make the Maximum Froggerdrive game...

Shoutbox - Each film has its very own shoutbox, that functions independently of the one on the home page, forum, and shout index. When we have a featured movie, we can have its shoutbox be featured too (if we want). Also, some of you may notice I move your posts to a relevant location. I know moving topics can be annoying as fuck, but our forum index still shows all posts. I just prefer them categorized under movies, so people browsing the movies can find the relevant posts.

Trash Awards - Don't forget to vote, people. I can't begin to experiment with the Trashie awards until I get some category ideas. This is going to be an event, in which the movies in our database will be filtered by the specified criteria, with user votes factored in to determine the winner.

Scheduled Viewings - It's very hard to sync up schedules, I'm sure, but it's not a bad idea to set aside a timeslot in which users would all participate in a shoutbox while watching (on their own external device) the featured movie-of-the-week. In fact, there can be several viewings a week, even. Of course, this shoutbox can be added to the event's post.


What can you do?

We're gonna tear into every film on our site. Finding the right week to feature a certain film can be difficult, but we can organize it however we want. We can feature Halloween in December, or My Bloody Valentines Day on Leif Erikson Day if we wanted to (we'll try to keep it relevant though). So if you have any burning discussions or articles you want to have about a movie, then save 'em up for here, cuz any movie in our database is gonna be covered sooner or later. If it's a really shitty movie, it may only get 1 day, and if it's a great movie, it may be featured for more than a week. Who knows! I want the team to want to do this, because it's going to be fun. LOTS o' FUN. This wont start until after "beta" stage, so think about what you want to do here when your favorite movie gets featured.